Muse
by Chiroptera Jones
Summary: Erin is an ex-Controller, but life is going pretty well for her post-war - until she gets an unwanted visitor.
1. Erin

It took a few years for Erin to get her big break, once everything had settled down. It both surprised her, and didn't surprise her at all that that was still possible. Sure, there had been a war. Sure, there were aliens now. Sure, Erin still woke up in sweating terror some nights. Sure, she still had difficulty going about in public every now and then.

But Erin was just meant for a career in music. It was what she had always wanted to do with her life. Yeerks couldn't change that. And life on Earth went on... much as it always had.

Both her therapist and her friend Nick thought that writing about her experiences during the invasion was a good idea. "You're not alone, Erin," Nick had told her. "There are a lot of people who went through what you did. And it's something big that the whole country – hell, the whole world - is coming to terms with, even those who weren't personally affected. I think people want, people _need _to hear about it."

So she'd written her songs, and she'd worked hard, and it had finally paid off.

The doorbell rang. Erin looked up from where she was sitting, curled up on the couch in the sun with her guitar. She tucked a curtain of red hair behind her ear, letting the pencil fall from her fingers. It rang again.

"Fine, fine," she muttered. "Somebody's impatient."

She put the guitar and writing pad aside and padded through the living room in her socks.

"Hello?"

There was a young man on her doorstep. He had long, untidy dark hair. "Hello," he said, in a quick, edged way that made the word sound like a challenge. He didn't look familiar at all, but he looked at her like he knew her.

"Do I know you?" Erin asked.

His eyes met hers, almost insultingly direct. "Yeah, you do."

"Uh, pretty sure I don't, actually." She edged the door shut a little. This guy was... unsettling. Maybe she ought to just slam the door in his face, but she couldn't bring herself to be that rude. "You must be mistaking me for someone else."

"Oh, no, definitely not," he said. He stepped forward, his gaze intense, his voice mock-casual. "I was listening to the radio this morning and I heard one of your songs. And you know the_ funny_ thing, it sounded _awfully_ familiar. In fact, I distinctly remember writing some of it, sitting at your piano after..."

Panic shot through Erin. She stared at the stranger, frozen. "You!" she yelped.

She had not expected her old yeerk to show up on her doorstep. If she had, she didn't know what she would have imagined she'd look like. But it wasn't this.

Erin came to her senses and went to slam the door shut, but she'd left it too late. Before she could get any real force behind it, the young man had pushed forward and shoved the door open. She backed into the house and he followed her.

"Yeah. Me," he said. He swung the door shut behind him with one hand and smiled at her with a sudden flash of teeth. "Hello, _Erin_. Missed me?"

"Get out," Erin said, her voice wobbly.

"I'm not going anywhere, Erin," he said. He stabbed a finger at her accusingly. "_Why_ is there music that I wrote playing on the radio? Without permission or even _credit?_"

"_Get out_!"

"No," he said flatly. "You. Stole. My. Music."

"What are you doing here?" She kept retreating, her arms crossed over her body.

"Talking to you. Obviously," he sniffed. She thought she could see a hint of the old Irdane in that. It was so hard to connect the ideas, to think of this young man with intense eyes and a butterfly on his shirt as her. Irdane was a yeerk, a haughty voice in her head. "About a certain song. That I helped write. That is currently playing on the radio. Are you not listening to anything I'm saying? Helloo, Erin, anyone home?" He gave a sarcastic little wave.

"I - I want you to go away," Erin said. Maybe if she said it often enough something would happen. "You can't be here. My – my housemate's going to be coming home soon -"

"Oh, tsk tsk," Irdane said condescendingly. "He's not. It's Nick, right? He won't be home for hours – he never is." He had managed to back her into the living room. "Anyway, I am _not_ leaving until we..."

Why had she let him into the house? Why was she letting him push her backwards? Erin swallowed and planted her feet. "No. I don't care what you want, you're not getting it. Get out of my house."

Irdane planted his feet equally firmly, crossing his arms dramatically, and glared at her. "I want what's mine. That's all."

Erin felt like screaming. "How dare you! After everything you've - How _dare_ you come in here and try to take any more from me! What's your problem? Can you just not stand it that I might be happy?"

"Hey, hey, I don't think so!" Irdane said, raising his voice over the top of her. "I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you. I was quite content to leave you alone. You're the one who _stole_ -"

"Stop saying that!" Erin yelled. She looked around the room for a weapon and saw the bookshelf. She snatched a book up and threw it at him. "I didn't steal anything from you! Leave - me - alone!" She threw another book, and then a shoe.

He avoided the shoe, his hands raised defensively. "Come on, Erin! You know that song is as much mine as it is yours!"

"Just because you were in my head when I wrote it doesn't make it yours!"

"No, you're right, that doesn't make it mine," he agreed. "What makes it mine is that when _you_ gave up on it, I stepped in and finished it. By myself."

Erin started to speak, but stopped. It was true. Irdane had finished that particular song without any help from her. She'd refused to work on it; too upset, that particular week. Too full of hatred to do what the yeerk said, even when it was music. The yeerk had needed it finished, a school thing, so she'd done it herself.

"And as for the others," the new Irdane said, scowling, "What makes _them_ mine is that I wrote at least a third of the music, _at least_, and helped you with the words sometimes too. Are you claiming those too? I won't let you."

"I... No. No, stop it," Erin said. She clenched her fists. How had this happened? _No,_ she thought, _Irdane didn't put in that much of them_. Sure, she'd helped, a bit, but the songs Erin had written while she was infested were still fundamentally _Erin's songs_. No way anybody – least of all one of _them_ – was going to take any of her songs away from her. "They're mine."

"Mine, too," he said fiercely. "They're mine too."

"Well – well maybe I'm _taking_ your share," she said. "You took from me. I'll take it as payment for _the year of my life _I spent as your puppet!"

"You _can't do that!"_

"Says who?" Erin demanded. "How are you going to take them away? What can you do to me?"

Irdane looked taken aback for a moment. "I – what?"

"What are you going to do to me?" Erin repeated. Was she... winning? She pushed forwards, finding confidence. "You say you won't 'let' me, but how are you going to stop me? What power do you have to make me do anything?" She tipped her head on one side, putting on a fake honeyed tone. "Tell me, Irdane, how much money do you have? Can you afford a lawyer?"

He blinked rapidly. _Hah_, Erin thought. _That's a no_.

"I – But. But they _are_ mine," he said. "I wrote... you know I wrote..."

"Good luck convincing people of that," Erin said. "Whether it's a legal thing or public opinion, if you want to fight me about this, I'll win. What proof do you have that you contributed anything to those songs? It all happened inside my head."

He stared at her for a few seconds. "I don't have any proof," he said quietly.

She poured all the scorn she could muster into her voice. "Make all the crazy claims you want. You think anybody is going to look at this situation and side with _you_? You're a _slug_."

He was silent.

Erin gave a small smile. Inside, she exulted. _I was right_, she thought. _The therapists were right. They can't hurt me anymore_.

Erin turned around and strode to the phone, hanging on the wall. "I think that settles that," she said. "Everything I wrote is mine and there's nothing you can do about it. If you don't get out of my house in ten seconds, I'm calling the police."

He opened and closed his mouth, looking lost. "I don't – wait," he said. "Wait." He pushed a hand through his hair, and looked at her with pleading eyes through a fringe of dark strands. "Aw, fuck it."

Erin glared at him. She put her hand on the handset of the phone. "I said, get out."

"Erin, please," he said suddenly.

Erin was struck by the strangeness of it. She didn't think Irdane had ever used that word to her before. Why would she have done? There was nothing she'd needed to ask Erin for. Anything Irdane wanted she could just take.

"No," she said.

"Wait," he said quickly. "OK, OK, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have come here like this." He raised his hands in a pacifying gesture, and smiled at her. "That was stupid. I'm really sorry. I just got kinda worked up, you know? Surely there's some way we could work this..."

Erin snorted incredulously. "Work this out? You've got to be kidding me. How delusional are you?"

"I'm not really your enemy, Erin," he said, his voice wheedling. "I always liked you, you know? When you consider..."

"_Not my enemy_?" Erin's voice rose. She bit down the urge to argue -it wouldn't achieve anything. He probably wanted to draw her into an argument, but she wouldn't bite. "I'm not even giving you one more minute of my time. For the last time – get out."

For a few moments he looked at her. He bit his lip and looked away, brow creased in a scowl. "Fine," he muttered. "I'm going."

He kicked her shoe stand over as he left, a surprisingly childish act of temper. Erin followed to close the door behind him.

She let out a huge breath. Her chest still seemed full of angry, shaky butterflies. But she also felt... kind of good about herself, she realised. She had stood her ground, and she'd won. He was gone.

She would still ring her agent and tell her about this. Just in case. But for now? She'd chalk this one up as a victory.


	2. Irdane

"Fine!" Irdane spat at the door. "I don't want your stupid songs, anyway! Keep'em! I'll write better ones!" He wheeled around and kicked a pot plant, scattering dirt across the paving stones. If she heard, she didn't respond. He knew he was being irrational and he didn't care.

He raised his voice to a shout. "You'll see. I'll write better songs than you ever did. I don't need you or your help or your _stupid music!_"

There was no response, of course. He wandered away and slumped down to sit on the curb, feeling a little foolish but mostly like he was about to cry.

"Stupid," he muttered into his hands. "Stupid, stupid, stupid. What the hell did I_ think_ was going to happen?"

He should have thought about this better. Approached it better. But no, he'd gone charging in like a bull in a china shop, and now Erin would never ever speak to him again, let alone acknowledge his right to the music.

"It's not _fair_," he said.

How could she? How could she do this to him? She knew how important those songs, _that song in particular _was to him. She had to know. There had been other songs later, but - it was the first thing he'd ever done. The first beautiful thing he'd ever had a hand in. And she just… wiped it away like it was _nothing_.

It wasn't fair.

It wasn't fair that Erin should get to be successful while he couldn't even get into the damn music school. It wasn't fair that she was getting contracts while he was writing songs nobody wanted to listen to and slowly teaching himself to sing all over again. He'd felt slow and stupid and clumsy for months after he got the morph, and sometimes he still felt that way. Stupid and clumsy and… talentless.

He tried _so hard_ not to admit it to himself, but he was scared, deep down, that they'd been right when they'd told him that he couldn't make music. All he could do was steal and copy and destroy. He couldn't create.

_It's not true_, he told himself. _We yeerks can make things, beautiful things. I can make beautiful things. I just need the chance_.

But sometimes, when he sat up late at night with pencil and paper, wracking his brain for words that wouldn't come, or when he threw out the scrawled pages he'd laboured over a week after writing them because they were rubbish, he wondered.

Maybe it had never been him at all. Maybe it was just one more thing he'd stolen from Erin. He'd enjoyed it so much, but he'd enjoyed her graceful body and her clear sweet voice and long glossy hair too, and he'd always known that those weren't his.

Music had been different. Irdane had believed that the music was his too. Maybe he had been wrong.

_No._ He rejected the idea. He stood up, taking a deep breath. _It is mine. I just need more time. If I love it enough that makes it mine._

_OOO_

Irdane stood on the corner, tuning his guitar. He took to the piano more, for some reason. Maybe it had stuck better because he'd just absorbed Erin's knowledge of how to play the guitar, but she'd been halfway through learning piano when he took over? He didn't know. But he was good enough at guitar, too. The case was laid at his feet hopefully.

He sang the last few scales of a warm-up routine under his breath. His new voice was different to Erin's, too, and different to the second host he'd had after her. It couldn't reach the higher notes, and new notes had opened up, and it reverberated somehow indescribably differently in the back of his head and chest.

He didn't mind, though. It was kind of nice to have something different.

He scanned the people walking past before he started. No familiar faces. A few redheads caught his eye, but neither was the one he was looking for.

Well, he couldn't just stand around waiting. He hummed a note, and began to play. One or two people glanced his way as he took a deep breath and added his voice to the guitar.

It was just as sweet as it had always been. The music filled his chest and poured out of him, and he almost forgot to watch the crowd.

Yes. This was what he'd stayed for. Not that he couldn't have found a way to make music no matter what body he was in, but this… words couldn't describe it. And he would know, because he'd tried.

He finished the first song, and found himself slipping easily into singing an old piece he used to sing a lot as Erin. The song wasn't in the program he'd worked out for today, but that was OK. No surprise that she was on his mind.

It had taken him months to get over his outrage enough to buy her CD. Once he had, though, he spent hours listening to it lying on his bed with earphones in and his eyes closed. He was biased, of course, but he thought she'd only gotten better.

He'd squirmed a bit on the fifth track, though. Because of course she'd written about her infestation, and it was… weird. Unpleasant. He didn't like the way it made him feel.

He sang through most of his repertoire. A lot of covers, but some of his own material as well. Today, with the sun shining on him and music humming through him like blood in his veins, his own songs seemed to fit seamlessly in with the rest of them.

Every so often he would stop between songs to take a sip of water, glance around at the people, and then quickly return to singing when he didn't find anyone. Once or twice he saw people pausing to put coins in the guitar case, and he smiled at them if he caught it in time.

But eventually he had to stop to pack up and go.

Irdane drummed his fingers on the guitar, not wanting to take it off just yet. He scanned the crowd one more time – two more – but eventually he had to admit it to himself.

She wasn't coming.

_You knew she wasn't going to come_, he told himself. _You already knew that_.

He hadn't realised he'd been clinging to that last bit of hope so hard, but obviously he had been, because now that it had been dashed he could feel any remnants of his good mood fraying and falling away. And suddenly, without any warning, he felt _awful_.

He'd been going to ask…

It was stupid, but he'd thought maybe they could put aside their differences and cooperate again. Her music had only improved over the last few years, and so had his, but – there was a special something about working with her. The works they'd done together were better than the ones they'd done apart. He had listened to them over and over and he was_ sure_ he wasn't imagining it. Together, the two of them had just _worked_.

There had been times when they were something resembling friends. He remembered that, even if she didn't. Bad times when he hadn't said anything, but he'd tried in his own way to cheer her up. Times when she'd done the same for him. Times when they had worked together on projects and the walls of captor and captive had melted away and left only two people creating together. It was stupid but he'd hoped they could do that again. He would've let her keep the earlier songs and everything.

But of course she wouldn't want to do that. Maybe she'd have said yes if he'd sent her a polite email to start with, instead of showing up in her personal space and ranting at her. Then again, maybe not. She blamed him for her infestation, which of course was understandable, even though it hadn't been his fault. Maybe she'd even seemed a little _afraid_ of him. That was confusing and a bit hurtful. He could understand how upset she was, he knew he brought back bad memories, but what had he ever done to make her think he might harm her _now_?

Irdane bit his lip. Bitterness bubbled up in the pit of his stomach, and he knew it would take over the whole day if he let it.

Which would be a shame, because it was a lovely day.

Irdane looked down at the guitar case. A handful of notes and a scattering of coins lay inside it. A gust of wind pushed against his face and blew his hair back, plucking at his shirt.

How incredible was it, anyway, that he could live like this? A handful of years took him from an artificial yeerk pool and a miserable, thankless mining job to this - an open windy morning, a blue sky, beautiful Earth and people paying him for music?

He played a chord on the guitar and smiled. It still hurt that he had lost this one. Maybe it'd always hurt. But if this was what his new life had to offer him? It really wasn't bad at all.


End file.
